The holiday season can be a time of beauty, love, and joy, but it can also be a swampland of stress, tension, and anxiety. We fill our minds and calendars with stuff to do, we put our bodies and spirits through the wringer in search of the “perfect” holiday (which is, of course, an oxymoron), and we overextend ourselves in the name of our family and friends. Before we know it, “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing,” turns into, “Hey, Harold, where’d you put my Thorazine?”

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

We can choose less.

We can meet our obligations and still choose to take care of ourselves.

We can give our loved ones a holiday to remember and still choose peace.

Real peace.

As a holiday gift from The Zen Teacher, I offer you some reminders for a low-stress, more tranquil Winter Break:

--When the chore list seems overwhelming, tell whoever is in charge of the list (whether husband or wife) to just give you two things to do and that you’ll do them. And then he or she can give me two more. Looking at a list of forty-seven things is daunting and makes us want to curl up with a blankie and an adult beverage. But anyone can do two things. Start there.

--When the to-do list looks like that picture of Santa rolling out his gift list as if it were an adding machine tape, Repeat after me: I don’t have to do it all. Now say it again: I don’t have to do it all.

--Save ten minutes before you go to bed and spend that time being still and silent. Meditate. Reflect. Say a gratitude sentence. Pray.

--Remember to eat some food that is good for you.

--Remember to eat some food that is not good for you.

--Remember to eat.

--Take a walk. But leave your smart phone in the house.

--Look at a cloud. Or a tree. Or better yet, both.

--Choose less. But do it better.

--Be present. (Without lamenting the past or worrying about the future.)

--On a day between now and when you return to school, mark the calendar for a period of anywhere between 30 and 120 minutes. When that day comes, for the time allotted, do absolutely nothing. You can sit. Listen to music. Maybe read, if you’re a rebel. But that’s it.

--Tell the fam you visit for the big dinner that even though you normally bring two dishes, you can only bring one this year. Everyone will survive.

--Participate in your Zen Practice (that thing that makes you lose all sense of time and that access your passion—running, writing, quilting, gardening, karaoke of old Kajagoogoo songs.)

This is by no means a complete list, but I hope these ideas help you remember that peace is a choice. No one will give it to you. You have to choose it for yourself. And there’s no point in doing everything perfectly if everyone else is calmly sipping egg nog, looking at Christmas lights, warming their hands by the fireplace, and otherwise enjoying the perfection you’ve created, while you’re sitting in the corner, hugging yourself in the fetal position and rocking back and forth.

So often we are victims of our habits. We get up in the morning, immediately grab our phones, have the same cereal for breakfast, brush our teeth in the same rhythm, put our coats on the same arm at a time.

And some decisions should be automatic. That makes it possible for us to be more productive and efficient.

But what if we were conscious and intentional with our choices?

What if we decided to be more mindful of certain decisions, more in control of what happened next when it really matters?

So often the answer is that we do what we do because we do what we've done.

But that’s not efficiency. That’s habit; that's mind-LESS-ness.

Whether it’s checking our phone the nano-second we rise from our beds, ordering the same thing at the restaurant on the weekend, or grabbing that handful of M&Ms from the bag in the fridge just because we opened the refrigerator door.

The exhausting, overwhelming, and often professionally fatal spectre of burnout continues to haunt teachers around the world. I have personally seen great teachers burnout, melt down, and even leave the profession as a result of increased obligation and workload with a decrease of financial and administrative support.

The good news is that you do NOT have to be a statistic.

You can beat burnout and continue in a profession you entered, I'm betting, out of a sense of passion and love.

But you DO have to realize that relief from impending burnout is in no one’s hands but your own.

It’s what you do, not others, that will make the difference.

So here are five approaches that can help you retain your sanity and peace in the classroom and maybe even increase your love for what is possibly the greatest, most noble profession on the planet.

Intentional and Radical Self-Care. Learning to take care of ourselves in the face of what seems like insurmountable obligation and responsibility is the first step toward avoiding burnout. And yes, your responsibilities and obligations are real and yes, they matter, but the price you pay for meeting them at the expense of your own mental, emotional, and professional health is real, too. Don’t be a number. Find ways to take care of yourself--a massage, time to read, a walk by the bay, a glass of wine--and make time to give yourself what you need to find your peace. And don’t assume it will happen on its own. It won’t. Write it on the kitchen calendar. And then do it.

Find Your Zen Practice. On a similar note, we all have activities we participate in that we are passionate about, that are immersive experiences for us, that allow us to lose ourselves and wonder where the time went. These activities help us recharge our batteries, infuse us with new energy, and jump start our passions. It might be writing, gardening, or hiking. Whatever. Find what you love and spend more time there. The papers will be graded when they’re graded and the world will still spin. I promise.

Just Say No. You do not have to be on every committee to be a good teacher. You do not have to chaperone every dance, direct every holiday program, or be the advisor of every Dungeons and Dragons club that comes down the pike. You are allowed to pick and choose. You are allowed to pursue a personal and professional balance. In short, you’re allowed to say no. You're allowed to say,"I don't have to do it all." Recognize your limits and set respectful, but firm parameters for your own mental health with both colleagues AND family. Then stick to them.

Stillness. The haste and speed of our current society has made the idea of stillness a dirty word. But we don’t have to listen. We can chose to find even a few minutes and just practice being still. Slow down the pace, sit in stillness, do nothing with intention, and then spend that time in silent and thoughtful meditation, reflection, or prayer.

Focus on what you love. Identifying what you still love about your path in education, focusing on why you chose it in the first place, and expressing gratitude for all of the wonderful aspects that still exist in your profession is a very emotional and spiritual (not to mention practical) way to acknowledge what is good about what we do. But don’t just keep it in your head. Jot a few of them down and slip them into a gratitude jar! Write them down in a journal! Talk to someone about them! Blog about them! Show others how much there is to love about what we do!

There are innumerable methods for maintaining our sanity in the sweet lunacy of The Education Machine and an infinite number of ways finding our peace in the classroom--ways that renew, rejuvenate, and reinvigorate our love for teaching. I’m hoping, then, that these five approaches will at least give you a short list of hands-on techniques you can put into action in the classroom tomorrow, or in your personal life today! TZT

LOOKING FOR MORE LIKE THIS? If these ideas resonated with you and you'd like to explore them more in-depth, you can purchase The Zen Teacher: Creating Focus, Simplicity, and Tranquilityhere.